Text/Yangcheng Evening News All-Media Reporter Dong Liu
Liu Chao: Focus on DNA solving cases and fills the gaps with multiple achievements
Liu Chao is the main founder of forensic genetics in my country. In the early 1990s, forensic DNA technology was blank in many aspects. He conducted repeated experiments on more than 6,000 foul-smelling corrupt body examination materials. After 10 years, he established DNA identification technology for corrupt examination materials, guided the establishment of 18 provincial and municipal DNA laboratories to fill these regional gaps; built my country’s “ministerial-provincial-city” DNA database to realize data sharing and large-scale application, and Guangdong Province alone directly compared more than 300,000 cases.
The identification of the cause of death of corrupt corpses in the water has been a major problem recognized by international forensic medicine for a hundred years. After 10 years, he led his team to make major breakthroughs in key technologies such as diatom enrichment extraction, qualitative quantification, and DNA testing. The results have reached the international leading level, and have been identified in more than 3,100 cases. In response to the issue of the reliance on import of key reagents for DNA testing, he took the lead in the development of 12 series of reagents such as high-throughput Y-STR, which forced similar foreign products to reduce the price by more than 50%. This result has been promoted nationwide, and Guangdong alone has solved more than 300 murder cases in recent years.
He has formulated 6 national industry standards and was authorized to 10 invention patents; 12 research results have reached the international advanced level, and won 4 second prizes of national scientific and technological progress (3 of which ranked first); he has won 2 first-class individual merits, and won the National Advanced Worker, National May 1st Labor Medal, National Outstanding Science and Technology Worker, National Outstanding People’s Police and other honors.
Liu Chao
As the second-level police technical director of the Criminal Police Detachment of Guangzhou Public Security Bureau, Liu Chaogang, 58, was awarded the title of “Outstanding Communist Party Member of Guangdong Province”. In addition, he has many identity cards: professors and doctoral supervisors, deputy head of the Forensic Genetics Group of China Criminal Technology Standardization, deputy director of the Physical Evidence Professional Committee of the Chinese Forensic Society, deputy head of the expert group, and director of the Academic Committee of the Key Laboratory of the Ministry of Public Security of Forensic Pathology.
After resigning from leadership position last year, Liu Chao focused on solving the accumulated murder cases. Over the past year, he has solved 7 accumulated cases that have not been solved for many years.And DNA is still his powerful weapon for “attack”.
Liu Chao at work
After resigning from his leadership position, he devoted his main energy to solving murder cases
Yangcheng Evening News: I retired from his leadership position last year. Can you breathe a sigh of relief?
Liu Chao: Although he no longer served as the captain of the Criminal Police Detachment of the Guangzhou Public Security Bureau last year, some murders that have been “accumulated” in Guangzhou in the past 20 or 30 years have not been solved, and it has always been a stone that has been weighing on my heart.
My previous detachment captains always tell me before retirement: Which case has not been solved? I hope you will solve it before retirement, and I hope you will pass on these unsolved murders to the next generation.
The criminal investigator has a special feeling – solving a case. The most important thing in solving a case is to solve a murder case. The most difficult thing in a murder case is to solve a accumulated case, which is the most scrutiny of the criminal investigator’s feelings and abilities. So, after I stepped down from my leadership position last year, I spent more than a year spending my main energy on solving murder cases.
CinemaYangcheng Evening News: What are the characteristics of these murder cases?
Liu Chao: Some cases were some cases that I encountered when I first joined the public security work in my twenties and thirties. The scenes of those cases – blood flowing like a river on the ground, and the corpses were highly corrupt. There were no technical conditions to solve the case at that time. Although so many years have passed, the scenes of these cases are still vivid in my mind.
Yangcheng Evening News: Why are these cases difficult to solve? Is it because there is little physical evidence?
Liu Chao: The difficulties we are talking about in criminal cases are not only reflected in the fact that there is not much evidence on the scene. The causal relationship of the case is unknown, the motive for the crime is unknown, and the nature of the case is unknown – such cases are difficult to solve.
For example, if a person who is usually very good and honest suddenly goes to another place to kill someone he doesn’t know, and there is very little evidence on the scene, it is difficult to solve such a case.
Such as in the case of “2004·7·13” in Huangpu, Guangzhou, happened in Huangpu, Guangzhou. The suspect sold apples with his father in Huangpu, Guangzhou when he was a child. Before committing the crime, he wanted to do business, but he didn’t have enough money. He came to Guangzhou and went around and moved to a hair salon shop. The hair salon shop asked him if he wanted to stay—twenty or thirty yuan, his motivation for starting andHe didn’t want to kill someone, but during the prostitution process, he used local materials to commit crimes on the spot due to prostitution and other issues. He killed one person first, but this process alarmed another person… He killed someone the night he came to Guangzhou and left Guangzhou the next day after the murder. After the suspect returned, he hid in the coal mine for more than six months. Later, he felt that the wind was calm and returned to the village and never left the village again. He endured it when others bully him. When others owe him money, he dare not ask for it or chase it. The villagers all said that he was an honest and good person. In the more than ten years after the crime, he was alive.
Yangcheng Evening News: How did you break through?
Liu Chao: Rely on DNA. There was a small episode before we arrested people. The household registration information showed that he was only 1.5 meters tall, but based on the crime scene, we analyzed that the suspect should be 1.7 meters. In this case, do you dare to arrest people? I made the decision and it is absolutely fine to catch it, because we have strong technical support such as DNA. Later I found out that the “gap” of about 20 cm in height is that the height data on the household registration materials in the early years were self-reported and inaccurate. Thanks to the innovation and progress of science and technology, such a accumulated case can be solved.
Yangcheng Evening News: What did he react when you arrested him?
Liu Chao: When we found him, he cried, and the first thing he said was “Finally freed.”
So back to what I said just now, this case is difficult to solve, and the difficulty is that he came to Guangzhou by chance, left after the case was done, and after going back, he never committed the crime again. He has been an honest man for more than ten years, got married, and has a son and a daughter. But even so, he could not escape the judgment of his conscience, and he said he often had nightmares at night. After being arrested, he told us that he wanted to see his wife and said, “Wife, sometimes I lose my temper because my heart is not calm (pure), I hope you forgive me.”
Later, I accompanied him back to Guangzhou by train. He cooperated very well along the way, telling us the whole case and the thoughts of over the years.
Absorbing ceremony held after successful DNA recognition (Liu Chao)
“The greatest sense of accomplishment was solved when difficult murder cases were solved”
Yangcheng Evening News: After retreating, how many such murder cases have been solved?
Liu Chao: My brigade of the Criminal Police Detachment solved the murder case, and a total of 92 murder cases were solved last year. I used to be the “top leader” of the Criminal Police Detachment, but I didn’t solve so many cases. Why? It’s because I’m now calm and focus on solving these cases. There are 7 cases in which I led the team to find clues and arrest people. These seven cases are cases that have not been solved by previous special task forces over the years. In addition to the correct thinking and scientific methods, these cases also require hard work. For example, the case I just mentioned was a business trip to Shaanxi to arrest people, we passed the href=”https://funnybookish.com/”>Cinema Re-analyzing the case inspection materials for many years and found clues. He went on a business trip for a week and passed DBabaylanNa technology survey clues. I took the lead in forming DNA experts from Shaanxi, Shanxi and Guangdong provinces to analyze them. I summarized every night until after 2 o’clock in the evening, and I had to get up before 5 o’clock in the morning to start a new day.
Although hard, others cannot understand the excitement after solving the case. Why do I talk about it? I talked about these cases because I was very excited.
Yangcheng Evening News: What is the key to solving these old murder cases?
Liu Chao: DNA! I am a DNA man.
For example, in March this year, I led a team to Tiantang Town, Yunfu City to arrest a suspect in a murder case. This case was a double murder case in which a couple was killed in Panyu, Guangzhou in March 2007. I remember when I was at the scene of the crime. href=”https://funnybookish.com/”>Babaylan, the whole ground was covered with blood, and the feet could not step on the blood. This case has not been solved for many years.
Last year we sent police forces to investigate and judged that it was an acquaintance who committed the crime, but the suspect could not be found. I led the team to go to Yunfu Tiantang Town, href=”https://funnybookish.com/”>Komiks stayed for more than a week and finally locked up the suspect. These two suspects have been good since childhood. After coming to Guangzhou, they heard that the victim’s family was rich, so they knocked on the door and robbed and killed people, and each one killed one. After the killing, they formed an offensive and defensive alliance – no matter who said it, the other person could not escape. At that time, among the many blood stains at the scene of the crime, we only found the suspect’s trace blood marks. But we have not given up for so many years, and finally found the perpetrator by DNA genealogy investigation.
The arrested personAt nine o’clock the night before, I drove to Yangchun. It was already eleven pm by Yangchun. The on-site meeting was immediately held. At about 2:30 in the morning the next day, one of the suspects was caught and the preliminary trial was overnight. At around six o’clock the next morning, we went to the construction site to arrest the second suspect, but we didn’t close our eyes all night.
Yangcheng Evening News: Do you work like this often? Do you ever want to do it because you feel tired?
Liu Chao: When we criminal investigators discover clues to major cases, they are more excited than anything else and absolutely have no feeling of being tired, so I often say that we will never say we are tired. When we solve the difficult murder case, we feel the greatest sense of accomplishment. This is to give the deceased an explanation, and it can also create a shock to the crime: as long as the case is done, justice will come sooner or later.
CinemaThe most difficult case: There is only one thousand examination materials in the Panyu family annihilation case. Babaylan containing the suspect DNA
Yangcheng Evening News: Which case is the most difficult case for you in your career?
Liu Chao: The 2014 Guangzhou Panyu Family Impact Case – Three Generations of Six Life. I remember very clearly that it was April 29. I arrived at the scene and stayed there for six days. This case was the most difficult case of the case I experienced. When I mentioned this case, the scene at that time echoed like a movie in front of me –
How was this case discovered? At that time, the neighbor downstairs found that water was always dripping on the roof, so he went up and knocked on the door, but he didn’t respond after knocking for a long time. After the community security guard came, he found that the family had not reported for decoration and the owner’s phone number could not be reached. Finally, he called the owner’s relative to open the door. As soon as the door opened, the body was found, so the case was reported.
When I arrived at the scene, there was still water in the house. The criminal stayed in the house for more than 20 hours. The criminal first checked the site in the community, then bought ropes, searched online for how to avoid surveillance videos and why they were not paid attention to it, and bought a new set of clothes before committing the crime. Then he went up to the roof, tied the rope to the roof, and slipped through the window to the residents downstairs, and carried out the robbery. After the first person in the house discovered him, he killed the other party. This process alarmed the others in the house. He was so angry… The criminal was very cruel. A female victim had already run out of the door, but was finally dragged into the house and killed by him.
After the murder, the criminal cleaned the scene in the house and wiped the evidence, mopped it with a mop, flushed it with water, and burned it with Komiks. He also washed away all the blood from the body and left. heDon’t want to leave any evidence.
After we checked the scene, the question arose: six people were killed at the same time, was it one person who committed the crime or how many people committed the crime? Difficulty in identification! Is the family extermination due to revenge, robbery or other reasons? Qualitative Difficulties Cinema! I conducted continuous inspections of the site from April 29 to May 5. During this period, the Ministry of Public Security had done a task to send an expert team to Guangzhou to guide the case on May 3. We reported that we were confident of solving this case, so the Ministry of Public Security decided to give us another two days. The task force is under great pressure day and night.
On May 6, among thousands of samples, the DNA of the suspect was finally found in one of them! After obtaining this major breakthrough, our deputy director in charge of criminal investigation led the team to arrest people, and the suspect was arrested in more than ten minutes.
How cunning is this suspect? He grabbed U-shield and bank card, but did not withdraw money for the time being after getting the password, but planned to wait for the police to put down the case and relax their vigilance before withdrawing the money. He removed his computer host, hid the card in the computer, and then installed the host case.
Yangcheng Evening News: Did the suspect who committed the crime think that you could find him?
Liu Chao: He didn’t expect it, he never dreamed it, let alone so quickly. He felt that his plan was a “hundred secrets” – new clothes, new ropes, and even shoes were newly bought, their hair changed and their postures were changed to avoid monitoring. In order to avoid investigation, he carefully designed all of this.
Seeing corpses now is like seeing a “soul messenger”
Yangcheng Evening News: The profession of forensics is quite special. It often deals with corpses or even highly corrupt corpses. Many people dare not even look at such evidence photos in court. Do you feel this discomfort or fear in your work in this profession? Liu Chao: When we first started doing this job, we dealt with various corrupt corpses, and couldn’t eat them. We felt uncomfortable and had nightmares. Later, when we got used to it, we saw the body of Babaylan, and we felt that it was the “soul messenger” talking to us. The souls of the dead Komiks are giving you this task of finding the truth. We eat boxed lunches on site and continue to do it after dinner.
Many people feel uncomfortable when they see the corpse. Our forensic doctor objectified the corpse. When we see the corpse, it is like a car lover seeing the best car. Over time, we look at KomiksThe corpse is like looking at other things, and it will no longer feel uncomfortable. On the contrary, finding the truth is our job. You have this responsibility. The more difficult the case is, the more test your ability, technology, and resilience.
Sometimes, when you go to a scene, step on it, step on the maggots and slap them. After you come back, there are maggots in the soles of your shoes, and the clothes smell like corpses for two or three days. Therefore, if you have been to such a scene, we usually don’t go home first, wash and replace the clothes, and go back to the workplace to sleep for two days before going back.
Yangcheng Evening News: How long does it usually take for a person who works for forensics to go from being uncomfortable to being adapted?
Liu Chao: A forensic doctor who loves this profession can overcome the discomfort caused by seeing the corpse within about three years, but some people can’t continue to study forensics, and some even faint and can’t do this job.
Yangcheng Evening News: You have been doing this job for 30 years. Your understanding of justice and life should be different from that of ordinary people, right?
Liu Chao: I tell you that sometimes, when we go to search for corpses, when the corpse is dug out and the light of day is coming again, it suddenly rains heavily on the scene. I have encountered such a situation four or five times, and from this I feel that the way of heaven is better and the net of law is still vast. This is also like reminding the world: everyone must have a sense of awe for life.